The invention relates to a safety-latching mechanism for latching a camera magazine relative to a camera. In particular, the invention relates to a safety latch for a camera which is located in the cockpit of an aircraft and which is subject to acceleration on the order of 10 g. The camera magazine is separable from the camera body.
The invention is, in particular, applied to a sighting recorder of a fire-arm which is located in the cockpit of a fighter. The operation of the camera is controlled by the trigger of the fire-arm. As a result of the recoil of the fire-arm at the instant of firing, the camera may be subject to very high accelerations up to 10 g (g being the acceleration due to gravity) especially in the direction of flight, which is hereinafter referred to as the longitudinal direction.
Due to these very strong vibrations, the camera magazine, which accommodates the film to be exposed, should be very stable relative to the camera body. This requirement is imposed in order to avoid a relative displacement between the film and the camera body as a result of the heavy shocks during exposure. Such displacement would result in blurring of the recorded pictures.
In the present state of the art this problem is solved in that the magazine forms an integral part of the camera body. However, such an arrangement has two drawbacks. First, the exposed film can be replaced with unexposed film only when the aircraft is not airborne; and second, it can be replaced only by removing the camera itself, so that the camera is subject to shocks during handling and in transit between the aircraft and the location where it is reloaded. If such a camera, loaded with an unexposed film, is refitted in the cockpit of a fighter, in flight replacement of the exposed film by the pilot is not possible because the pilot can only use his left hand for this operation. Thus, during a raid the number of available exposures is limited to the capacity of a single film.
A safety-latching mechanism for a camera magazine of the type described above is known from French Utility Certificate No. 2,269,844. This relates to a camera for recording measurements during test flights. The latching mechanism described in that Certificate is intricate and comprises several tens of components, some of which are difficult to manufacture, such as a centering device comprising a slot and a ridge, as well as a blocking mechanism comprising a rectilinearly movable knob and two laterally movable latches.